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The Chains We Wear	By : LadyYeinKhan Category: Gundam Wing/AC > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 13123 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing/AC, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
AN: Perhaps it's the change of scenery, or the fact that I've returned to Gundam Wing's country of origin, or the fact that when I have absolutely no work to do--no worksheets to make or edit, no compositions to check, no Japanese homework to finish--I need to do something with myself, but lo and behold inspiration. Even my own original pieces (minor scenes strung together flimsily at the moment) are starting to sound a bit better. I have returned.

I'm waiting to hear the crickets.

It might also be because I got a review, out of nowhere. Those might be the best kind, as I expect them the least and they seem to give me that spark I need.

Of course, it would be too much to ask my readers to review often for me. I've done little but disappoint them, what with the long (and multiplied) hiatuses. But I still find this story fascinating...and I still plan on finishing it as my major writing project. Somehow...

If there are readers out there: thank you. And..I'm sorry. I write stories to inspire or interest you, and yet I have not upheld my end of the bargain. I've been neglectful, and for that I am sorry. But there is some inspiration left in me, and it has brought you chapter 11.

Chapter 11

“Oy, Nameless!”

The bolt popped out of the wrench with a loud screech. He felt it immediately and sighed. After stripping the screw on the leg, he couldn’t afford to mess up another piece of hardware.

“I know you hear me,” the mechanic—he thought it was “Dex” but it was probably something else—called. He glanced over his shoulder, determined he was high enough to safely ignore him, and set the wrench back on the bolt. “Little piece of shit.”

“Try his name next time.” Great. Two of them. Now they would never leave.

“Does he look like a Chink to you?”

“ ‘Nanashi’s’ Japanese, not Chinese.”

“Chink, Jap, Gook. They’re all a bunch of squinty-eyed fucks,” he said. He frowned as he worked the bolt. The first group of mercenaries never cursed this much, outside of battle. “And he ain’t one of them.”

“The kid answers to it—”

“And half a dozen others—”

He set the bolt down by his knee and started the next. Perhaps he should have been more insistent on “Nanashi.” But he couldn’t take any chances. He hadn’t been there long enough for chances. They were itching for a reason to dump him somewhere. Even the leader, who often grunted his appreciation.   No one trusted a child skilled with a wrench and a gun. No one liked being outdone by a kid. Pickiness could very easily be read as insubordination, and a good excuse to throw him in the nearest orphanage. Or shallow ditch.

And he wasn’t particularly attached to the name anyway. Captain had given it to him, begrudgingly, almost as an afterthought when they picked him up staggering along the road. It wasn’t a title, a necessity, until after it became clear that he would be with them for longer than a few meals. He gradually grew accustomed to the strange group of sounds, and even came to like some of the instances, some of the tones, he heard it in. But he had never thought about himself as “Nanashi.” He never really thought about himself as anything other than a pronoun. Sometimes as a very confused pronoun. People expected names, though. “Nanashi” was at least convenient and familiar.

He used to try to find his name. During the most menial jobs and the worst sleeplessness, he would dig in his few, brief pieces of memory. Drill through granite with a toothpick.   Once, he had thought he found something, but then the oil line ruptured. It was gone by the time he finished cleaning his face. The aching in his chest surprised him. But he solved that. No more trying, no more pain—just a deep sense of disappointment, and then emptiness.

“—at least don’t take it so literally.”

“Do I look like a Chink to you? Nameless!”

He didn’t look back this time, twisting the bolt off the rest of the way with his fingers. After all, he preferred “Nanashi.” Or “Kid.” Even “Green eyes” and “You” were higher up on the list.

“Nanashi,” the other called. He glanced over his shoulder. Another mechanic, specialized in the software. He hadn’t spent enough time working with that part of the suits yet to guess a name. “See?”

“Just get the little shit down here for dinner.”

He made a face and turned back to the bolts. “Not hungry.”

“That was your excuse yesterday!”

What was he complaining about? More portions to go around.

“You’re not going to finish that before dinner’s over,” Software explained. Exactly. “Come down now, Nanashi, and finish later.”

“Needs to get done. Not hungry.” He shrugged.

“Who cares if you’re not hungry? Get down here. You’re a freaking skeleton. You expect us to pull your weight forever?”

He twisted and dropped the next bolt. It chinked against its fellows with a stubborn finality.

“Whatever. I hope the little shit starves.”

Not likely. He and the cook, a barrel of a man with the same level of combat skill as the wrench, had an understanding.   The cook saved him whatever nonmeat things he had (usually a few pieces of bread and beans, sometimes some rice, vegetables and cheese if he was lucky) and he weaseled his way into supply-resupply trips. The cook wished he would look a little more pathetic, but as long as the store keeps and townswomen didn’t realize he was a mercenary, they parted with more, rarer food stuffs. Or at least charged a little less so they could have a little more.

He knew it was a ridiculous amount of work, worming his way into the supply trips, and work that didn’t make the other mercenaries and mechanics much keener on keeping him. The trips were popular. They wanted…to do whatever they couldn’t do here, whenever they had the chance. But the cook, and the captain, liked the extra. So he always managed to ease someone out. Carefully.

Of course, he didn’t particularly care if they liked him. They just had to keep him. The captain made the decisions. The captain liked the extras. And it wasn’t like the mercenaries didn’t like them either. Just not when it was their turn to wait. If he could work out the same deal as before—

But no. There was no one he trusted enough to swap food with. Bryan had been an exception. If he thought refusing meat strange, it wasn’t strange enough to keep him from trading all his nonmeat for meat. He couldn’t trust these mercenaries (except for the cook, who finally just started shrugging) for the same response. If he had to work to not eat it, then he would work. And he was not going to eat it. It always reeked of fire, smoke, and burned flesh. Never eat it. He would starve first.

He rubbed absently at his back. He had almost found the source of that decision in his dreams once, too. Lost it to an electric shock.

The last of the bolts out, mentally catalogued and circling his legs, he pulled off the gun’s main panel. He frowned. The clip was empty. They hadn’t had a fight in days. It shouldn’t be empty. It wasn’t his suit, so he wasn’t sure what happened, but he suspected small rodents were involved.

Maintenance first.

At least they had extra clips. He had been surprised at the number: twice what the other group had.

Why he continued to compare this group with the first, he didn’t know. There was no point, seeing as they were dead. The twinge in his chest was strange too. It hadn’t started to fade yet, but he didn’t doubt it would.

You always needed extra clips. But this group. They carried extra because these mercenaries were easily bored, and their boredom led to stupid—usually shooting—related activities. It was a useful bit of information he had overheard, on one of the first supply trips. He liked useful bits of information. The first mercenaries, among everything else they taught him to like and appreciate (twinge again), encouraged his interest in overhearing, processing, storing, and retrieving useful bits on information. And silence.

He really liked silence. Being able to stand and virtually disappear, that was thrilling. And being a child only made it easier. He faded in and out, turned big eyes on townswomen who fawned on him and disappeared to snoop on them in the span of minutes. It was exciting, and practical.

He never would have found out about periods otherwise.

It was apparently a big deal for girls; the mother had burst into the store and dragged several women off into the corner to “share the good news.” She, the daughter whoever she was, was a little young: ten, his own age, if he had been aged right (Captain swore he was. Adam was the best medic the first mercenaries, and he, could ask for). But some girls were “early bloomers.” He hadn’t been, and still wasn’t, quite sure what that meant. It didn’t matter. Her detailed, disgustingly detailed, explanation of the symptoms, that mattered to him.

No tenderness of the breasts (which he knew, thanks to these mercenaries, were some hidden part of his chest and would swell to the size of melons someday). No cramps (which sounded like a stomach ache, just lower). No changes in attitude or appetite (which better not mean suddenly developing uncontrollable urges for beef and pork). And certainly no bleeding.

He frowned, not sure if the absence meant anything other than not being “an early bloomer.” Of course, the woman’s daughter probably didn’t have a penis too. That probably changed things. But maybe it didn’t. Maybe, maybe she did. But he didn’t know. He sighed. Adam would have known. He could have asked him. Adam knew about him, after all. Adam didn’t like to talk about it and told him to keep it to himself.   But Adam at least knew and would have answered his questions. Or get permission from Captain to find the answers.

Not this doctor, who looked at him as an intrusion and an experiment in turns. He didn’t trust this doctor. He wouldn’t ask or tell him anything.

He checked his work twice before confirming that yes, the maintenance work was done and yes, he had to get down and get a new clip. Stretching, he stood, careful not to upset his meticulous bolt catalogue, and started climbing.   He was a little more careful than he had been going up, but he hadn’t had greasy fingers then. It didn’t mind his pace. The suits never did. He patted the cool metal when he touched the ground.

Dinner wouldn’t last too much longer. He wanted to be back up with the clip, where he could safely and convincingly ignore everyone and “work,” as quickly as possible. He hurried to the supply crates and flipped open the marked lid.

Bolts. Lots of bolts. Screws. Metal panels. He looked from the contents to the lid before flipping open the crate next to it. Wiring.

Someone had mislabeled, or misplaced, everything. Again. I am not fixing this—not unless the captain orders me to.

“Not going to find any dinner in there, Nameless,” Dex—and it was staying as “Dex,” right or not—said. He wore one of his rare lop-sided smiles and slowly swung an almost-empty bottle. “But if you’re nice.”

He followed the lazy arc with his eyes. When did they get alcohol? More importantly, what did they sacrifice in their list of oh-so-needed equipment and supplies to get it? Alcohol, he had learned, was expensive. Even the cheap stuff. And Dex was most certainly drinking cheap.   He could smell it on Dex’s breath. He frowned. If they had alcohol… He looked at the crates. It looked like they had enough of the suit supplies, mislabeled as they were. If we have supplies andalcohol… Maybe the cook wouldn’t have much to give him after all.

Exactly what he didn’t feel like dealing with. Dex blinked at his minute frown. Sniffing quietly, he turned back to rooting through the crates.

He expected Dex to leave. Well, to curse and then leave. Dex always did, because he wasn’t important enough (yet) to Dex’s pride or place to warrant more than a tongue lashing. So when a large palm slammed between his shoulder blades, thrusting him over the crate, he was genuinely, and vocally, surprised. The hard plastic dug into his stomach. He ignored it, pushing himself up and turning.

Dex sneered. “Arrogant piece of shit.”

It was a fairly large, bottle. But Dex wasn’t swaying. He wasn’t slurring. Which meant he wasn’t drunk, or at least not the falling-down, easily-avoidable drunk he had seen mercenaries reach before. He watched Dex closely, inching slowly to the edge of the crate.

“Try to do something nice for your skinny, ungrateful little ass—”

If he could get the crate between them, he could run.

“—teach you your place.”

The words were barely out of Dex’s mouth before his look softened into something more contemplative but distinctly foreign on his rough features. Dex’s eyes roamed over him: over his shoulders rolled protectively forward against this new expression; over his legs, bent lightly at the knee and ankle, ready and itching to run; over his face which he could feel tightening and paling.

When Dex’s fingers twitched, and a pink tongue swept over his lips, he bolted.

He spun away from the first lunging hand, putting the crate’s corner between them, turning his back. The second managed to slip a finger into the back of his shirt. He dropped to the ground, digging in with his toes, and exploded to the side. If he could get back to the suit! There was no way he could climb—

Pain exploded from his temple, washing over him in a white wave. He floated, knees buckled but held up in the large hand tight around his wrist. He was dimly aware, as Dex yanked him up and around, that he’d been hit with the bottle. It must have broken. He could smell the alcohol on his skin, in his hair. Right near his ear.

No. Wait. That was Dex’s breath.

He grunted as he hit a crate, head spinning. Get up, get up. His arms didn’t want to move. They crumpled beneath his chest as he tried to push himself up. A hand slipped between his chest and the plastic. He twisted and kicked as the fingers fumbled with his pants.

He connected with something and kept kicking at it. Dex snarled. “Fuck! Little bitch.”

Dex lay over him, crushing his ribs into the crate. He clawed at the edge. Dex forced his legs apart. Held them open with his thighs. He stopped breathing when his fly opened.

He screamed.

Dex capped his mouth with one hand. The other pushed down his pants. He bit the hand. Hard. Dex cursed, but still tugged on his underwear. He tossed his head, digging his teeth into the skin until he tasted blood. Dex howled. The hands disappeared—and a knee slammed into him. His mouth rounded in a silent scream. It slammed again, pushing testicles up and in. He sobbed.

Dex stayed, rubbed slowly with his knee. He dug his fingers into the crate. Suddenly, the weight and pressure were gone. He sank boneless and throbbing to the ground.

“Shit. Oh shit—”

Dex dropped by his side. He screeched as Dex pried his shaking fingers from his coiled legs. Dex didn’t even notice the scratching as he spread him open.

“What the hell is going on?”

He never should have screamed, he realized as Dex threw closed his legs and scrambled to his feet. Half a dozen men, doctor and captain included, wouldn’t be staring at him if he had just been quiet. Dex’s explanation was a buzz under the captain’s steady gaze. He inched his hand to his pants. The captain’s blue eyes narrowed; he pushed past the stammering Dex. He scrambled back. Why couldn’t he get his pants up faster? The captain was an arm’s length away. Caught his ankle, pulled. His pants scratched down the backs of his thighs.

Never scream. Not again. But begging—maybe, if he was lucky, it would at least loosen the grip. He couldn’t hear his own voice over the thundering in his ear. But he felt the tips of his hair scrap his cheek as he shook his head, and he felt his legs bruise as the captain held tighter and pulled harder.

“That’s enough.”

The words didn’t match his lips.

*-----*-----*

“I said, enough.” Trowa didn’t recognize the growling, strained voice near his ear. “Damn it. If you kick me again.”

Trowa lunged forward with a scream. The metal bar that had somehow made its way into his bed collided with his stomach, cutting the panicked sound short. The bar, suddenly a snake, curled around his waist. He screamed without breath. More serpent bars leapt up out of the slick, unfamiliar sheets—the captain’s sheets, smooth and never willing to give Trowa any purchase for kicks and clawing. The supple bars wound around his thrashing body, grinding bones into each other as they tightened.

He bucked, lungs burning for oxygen. The heavy constraints shifted to press him fully into the mattress.

“And after all that. Where do you get your energy?”

Trowa sobbed around a mouthful of sheet. His ribs were going to collapse. The captain was too heavy! His heart was pounding too hard! Trowa squirmed, digging with his toes and knees. Thick legs wrapped around his knees. Trowa screamed as a half-hard erection pressed against his rear.

The large hand that capped his mouth was finely calloused: guns, knives, maybe even a sword. Gentleman weapons. Noble weapons.   Filed nails, free of dirt and grease, topped long fingers that smelled mostly of ink, soap, a touch of gunpowder, and quality food and drink.

And it was brown.

Trowa was calm for the few seconds it took him to not only remember why he was in Fahd’s bed —the bastard chuckled at the warmth that suddenly flashed against his hand—and that he could only be ten years old again his dreams, but to also remember that he talked in his sleep. What he said, if he actually said anything, didn’t actually matter. He had thrashed and screamed, probably begged, in his extortionist’s bed.

Bile tickled the back of his throat. Trowa twisted, stomach churning. Fahd noticed something, perhaps the cold sweat beading on his forehead and neck, or the way Trowa kept swallowing, because he sat back, pulling Trowa up with him and blessedly loosening his grip around his stomach. He grunted as Trowa elbowed his way out of his arms.

His nightmare had shifted them up the bed. A very good thing, he realized, since his knees wobbled and collapsed the moment Trowa weight on them. Trowa snatched the edge of the nightstand and the bedpost. The drop did more than stretch his arms and churn up more bile. Trowa shuddered as something warm and sticky shifted. It dribbled down his legs.

Now he was really going to be sick.

Fahd sighed. He lifted him from under the arms. Trowa swung and scratched at the too-high hands. He let Trowa stumble upright and across the room, one arm tight around his heaving stomach and the other swaying from wall to the air in front of him.

Trowa didn’t need the sighed call of “on the right.” There were only a few doors, and only one was opened.   He didn’t bother with the lights, sliding to his knees and retching up the meager contents of his stomach. A strand, he would not think of what, clung to his lips.

Someone sniffed. Trowa tensed, fingers tight around the porcelain. It wasn’t the most dignified position: naked, heaving, head just far enough out of the toilet to keep his hair stomach acid-free. But it was mostly dark and he had a good angle for a leg sweep if Fahd dared approach him. No hands in his hair or on his back. No voice, low and chuckling, coaxing him to relax. He was not going to be treated like some first date who couldn’t hold liquor. Fahd’s shins would snap first.

Nizar ran a hand over his face, muttered a curse, and walked away from the doorway. Trowa groaned. He settled his cheek on his forearm. Great. .

His legs didn’t wobble nearly as much when he stood, flushed, and slouched to the sink. More luxury chrome, more artifice, but the water was clear and cold. Trowa sighed as it ran over his hands and wrists. He bent, splashing his face before ducking further and pressing his lips to the cold stream. He would never think of drinking directly from the faucet at home, or at anyone else’s home for that matter, but Fahd was not anyone. He would have to live with gross lapse in manners.

Water settling his stomach, Trowa straightened. There was, unfortunately, enough hall light filtering in for him to catch his reflection. He didn’t look terrible. No major bruises, and no blood, which was a nice change. An oddly dark patch of skin glared from his neck. It stung when he touched it. Trowa sighed. At least it was far enough down that his shirt collar would cover it. And scratch it constantly. Of course, that might be a welcome distraction from the dull, constant ache between his thighs.   Oh work’s going to be fun.

Trowa shifted and grimaced. It was his first time on a motorcycle all over again. Of course, he hadn’t had breasts then, and he hadn’t had breasts when—But Trowa focused on the motorcycle comparison. He’d be able to walk upright then. And he could ignore his breasts. It wasn’t like they actually hurt. Granted he hadn’t put his corset on yet. But broken ribs, gun wounds, attempted suicide, those actually hurt. Maybe I should shot myself in the foot.

Like he hadn’t already.

“You know,” Fahd said when Trowa returned to the bedroom. He was balanced on an elbow, cheek on his fist, sheet just barely over his hips. “I’ve been cursed and sobbed at. Some begged for more, others for less. I even had one lunge at me with a letter opener. But you might be the first who actually vomited from sleeping with me.”

Trowa opened his mouth, and then snapped it closed. As if Fahd had anything to do with that display of weakness. But Trowa wouldn’t give him any new opportunities to wriggle further into his life. He would rather have Fahd’s arrogance than his curiosity.

Fahd frowned at the sudden click of Trowa’s teeth. He slid his fingers through his sex-and-sleep tousled black hair and sighed. The bedside lamp clicked off. Patting the space beside him, Fahd settled back onto his side. He opened his eyes and lifted his head from his arm after a moment.

“Don’t tell me you plan on sleeping in the doorway.”

“No.”

“Wonderful. Then come to bed.”

Not likely. “I have to work.”

“Not at midnight, you don’t. Now come here.”

“I have to work.”

Fahd sighed. “Your dedication shames me.” Trowa grit his teeth as Fahd turned the light back on and rolled up. “But wouldn’t it be a little unfair to ask Nizar to drive you in now?”

Trowa had no intention of getting anywhere near that truck. “Taxis run at all hours.”

“I’d never ask for such an unnecessary waste of money,” he said. Fahd’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Nizar will take you back. In the morning.”

Trowa eyed the clothes still crumpled a few feet from the bed. How fast would he have to move to get them, dress, and run out before Fahd tackled him? Too fast.   And there was no way he was walking out naked. Not that Fahd would let him, which would probably be more painful than just sulking back to bed.

Fahd sighed. Trowa stiffened as he moved, reaching for the digital clock. He almost jumped when Fahd set it down with a loud thunk.

“There. Five-thirty. That should give you plenty of time, after you wake up. Now come here.”

Trowa insisted to himself that he was going back to bed because his knees were starting to shake. The last thing he wanted was to be carried. Lying on his side near the edge, back to Fahd, Trowa glared at the clothing pile. The wrinkles would be hard to explain.

The room darkened. Trowa twitched as Fahd wrapped an arm around his stomach, growling when it pulled too carefully. Too mindful of past nausea. It wasn’t until Trowa’s back rested flush against his chest that the hand started making slow circles.

Trowa twisted. “I—”

“Yes. Now go to sleep.”

Trowa wanted to stay angry, stay awake, just to spite him and the presumptuous, deceitful touch. Up his stomach, down his side, over his hips. Slow. Intimate. Trowa dug his nails into his palm and his teeth into his cheek, but the need, the want, for sleep trailed after the gentle stroking. He knew he shouldn’t. Who knew what Trowa would dream about this time, what secrets would slip from his normally tight grip? But his body ached. The touch, distasteful as it was, was uncommonly, disarmingly gentle. Considerate. Disgustingly so.

The alarm didn’t wake him. Lips, moist and slightly parted, on his back did. They moved--across, down, across again—along Trowa’s skin. Trowa groaned around the pillow he had somehow burrowed into. Brow furrowing, he slid his arms sleepily beneath his chest. Fahd, mouth never abandoning its careful search, took hold of his wrists before Trowa could push himself up. Trowa shivered, melting into the bedding when Fahd’s tongue cut seemingly random, wet paths across his shoulders and over his spine.   It tickled down to his waist, back up, over a little and down again. In far too straight a line.

“Off,” Trowa hissed into the pillow. He pulled on the hands holding his wrists out.

“Where did you get these,” Fahd asked against the scarred skin, holding down Trowa’s suddenly fully awake and squirming hips with his chest. “They can’t all be battle scars.”

“Of course they can.”

“You were too good for this many.” Fahd grunted as Trowa finally caught him in the chin with a bony hip.   “And you’re far too sensitive over them.”

He wasn’t sensitive. It was dead skin. There was nothing to be sensitive over. “I don’t appreciate people licking me in my sleep.”

“Only when you’re awake, you don’t,” he purred. The alarm buzzed over Trowa’s snarl. They listened to the sound for a moment before Fahd slid carefully off of Trowa’s body.   Fahd had to turn to switch it off, and missed the confusion and fear flicking across Trowa’s face.   “And since now you can say you have to work, I can’t teach you to appreciate the attention until tonight.”

Fahd smiled at Trowa’s blank, and then black, expression.

“I’m taking a shower.”

Trowa slipped out of bed and out of the room much faster than necessary. Fahd didn’t try to stop him, he didn’t comment. He didn’t even try the bathroom door Trowa locked. That didn’t stop Trowa from looking over his shoulder at said lock as he turned on, heated, and stepped into the shower.

He tried not to think about how Catherine’s miniscule shower, or his own fairly average one, could fit rather comfortably in the glass-and-ceramic box.   He tried not to think about the purpose of such a large shower, or the waist-high metal bar, and the over head metal bar. Trowa glanced at the lock again. Fahd had to have a key. Trowa’s skin was reddening from the heat and the door stayed closed.

Trowa leaned into the moist ceramic wall, shivering from something more than cool material on a warmed shoulder. None of it made sense. At all. Period. Which bothered Trowa. Fahd acted, last night and into the morning, without any reason at all. The alley had made sense. Botched inside job: a set up to send a physical warning to the organization and humiliate the operative to break their spirit. Got it. Perfect sense. Trowa could even see a bit of reasoning in the exploitation. He was a Preventor. There must be all sorts of information he was privy to (none of which Fahd asked for, which made no sense and therefore bothered him). And even if Trowa wouldn’t talk, Fahd could at least ensure his silence with force, imprisonment, or the threat of exposure.   Made sense. He got it.

There was no reason for Fahd’s concern and consideration. He didn’t gain anything by providing food Trowa could eat or accommodating, or attempting to, Trowa’s sexually difficult body. Nothing came from comfort.

And there had been comfort. There had to have been. He would not have slept otherwise. Trowa slid down the shower wall, arms tight over his waist. He wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about Fahd’s attention to food nuance or his restraint or his bedside manner, for lack of a better term. But it was something other than the anger, frustration, fear, confusion, and whatever other wild emotion that usually dominated. Trowa had slept a heavy, dreamless sleep. A Catherine’s-couch, lion-cage sleep. Comfort promised nights like that. Comfort, and safety.

That made the least sense of it all.

The water drumming around him was slightly cooler when Trowa finally gave up with a frown. He wasn’t going to understand the point behind making him feel comfortable and safe, no matter how fleetingly—and it had to be fleeting, a momentary lapse of some other baser instinct, a brief flicker of conscience he would not see again—anytime soon. And the only thing that would come from sitting so long in the shower would be wrinkled hands and a late slip. Standing carefully with the help of one of the conspicuous bars, Trowa bathed.

He hesitated only once, hands twitching on his upper thighs. He had never actually cleaned afterwards before; the mercenaries never said, or showed, that it was necessary. But they’re the last people I should base any decision off of. Trowa eyed the soap and the detachable shower head with distaste and small flinch. He’d probably be fine without it.

“I thought you might have drowned,” Fahd said when Trowa returned. Clad in only loose jeans, he looked at Trowa, wearing a large towel like a cloak held closed from the inside, and chuckled.   “Your clothes will be done shortly.”

Trowa blinked silently for a moment. “Done what?”

“Being ironed. You can’t go to work in something that’s lain on the floor all night.”

Trowa frowned. No sense at all.

Nizar apparently agreed with him, if the narrowed eyes and sneer he wore when returning the folded clothes were any indication. Trowa shared some of Fahd’s surprise, cocking his head a lesser angle. A little early for a full suit, isn’t it? He could only assume Fahd asked something like that in their native tongue. Nizar sniffed, glanced at Trowa with nothing short of loathing, and hand over the uniform with a stiff nod. Fahd watched him leave before passing the clothes on and following. He actually closed the door behind him.

Trowa stared, a towel on his shoulders and pressed clothes in his hands, until a cool drop of water from his hair slithered beneath the wet cotton. He shivered, snarled, and tossed them on the bed. He yanked the towel over his body and hair; his skin was a dull pink when he dressed. Trowa held the bedpost afterwards and considered, really considered, loosening the corset squishing his sore breasts.

“Like hell.”

Trowa buttoned his shirt. Two of them wobbled noticeably between his fingers. He’d have to be more careful. There would be no spares for replacements until he got home. He wasn’t sure how many buttons he actually had, but it wasn’t much more than two. He didn’t have any spare laces.

There was no gun holster on the dresser this time, only a comb which he ran through his hair. Another breach of manners Trowa felt Fahd could deal with. And something told him he wouldn’t have to worry about lice. Hair resting uncomfortably on his neck and shoulders (Trowa used to have a small jar of hair glue in his desk. Had he taken it home?), Trowa opened the door and stepped into the hall.

Fahd wasn’t in the hall, as Trowa half expected. He could hear him, though. Trowa, pressed close to the wall out of habit, crept to the corner.

“I don’t see why the mutt can’t walk,” Nizar spat. The scrap of metal on metal meant they were both in the kitchen.

“In this weather? He’ll either freeze or get run over.”

“Your point?”

Fahd sighed. “Other than the very unattractive attention a dead body in such a prestigious neighbor will bring to our unlisted address?” Nizar grunted. “He’ll know. Even if he never comes back, as unlikely as that is, one time will be enough. He’ll know where we are and then perhaps he will talk, which is exactly what you didn’t want.”

Trowa almost heard Nizar grind his teeth before answering. “Then I will put a bullet through his and that woman’s eyes. I am not driving him.”

It was silent, except for the running of water and the gentle scrap of a pan on the stove. Then Trowa heard a sigh so shockingly plaintive he simply had to look. Fahd’s shoulders drooped. He ran a hand through his hair.

“This is a game to you, then,” he asked. Nizar turned his head slightly, fingers tight around the handle of a skillet. “It must be, since you know how much I, I loathe the distance birthplace has forced between us. Why do you find compelling me to command you so amusing? Or,” Fahd paused, lips pursed as if he had stumbled across a thought he’d never had, and instantly disliked. He spoke slowly. “Or is this a new lesson? My final lesson? Will hardening my heart to my teacher make me the best possible ruler, or the mutable one?”

  Trowa could not see Nizar’s expression, nor was he all that curious. If he wasn’t looking at the spreading warmth of an almost child-like hurt and adoration, he wouldn’t have believed it. But there was hardness beneath the sadly arched brows, a cruelty behind the glittering black eyes. Nizar pounced on it.

“Someday, I think I will carve those eyes out, and we will see how your expressions suffer for it.”

Fahd’s lips curled. “I will be all the more pathetic for it,” he assured.   Nizar sighed and turned from the skillet.

“Where did I put the blindfold?”

Fahd stepped towards the skillet, gesturing over his shoulder. Trowa wasn’t about to shrink from where he was perfectly visible in the doorway, as if he was guilty about eavesdropping, but he wasn’t going to come any closer either.

“Do not give him reason to forget the blindfold through rudeness. Besides, you haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

There was no way Trowa could explain a concussion, or at the very least bad facial bruising. Grinding his teeth, he sat stiffly at the table.

He was begrudgingly admitting that the pancakes Fahd had put in front him a few moments later were not only good but exactly what he needed after hours without a meal, coupled with strenuous activity, when Nizar returned. He paused, looked from Trowa to Fahd, pouring the last of the batter from a bowl Trowa had only noticed a few minutes before, and back again. From the grind of his teeth, and the barked foreign tongue Fahd answered with a shrug and a word, Trowa had the distinct impression he was eating the man’s breakfast.

With an inner smirk that would have pleased Duo, Trowa ate with a touch more emphasis.

Fahd was sipping coffee across from him when Nizar tossed a folder almost onto his food. He opened it with a deliberate slowness after moving his coffee safely to the side. Scanning a few lines, or what Trowa assumed to be lines, he turned towards Nizar. The folder fell forward. It was nothing but numbers and squiggles.

Fahd was from Arabia. Or at least that’s what Trowa thought he remembered from the profile. He couldn’t speak Arabic—or was it Farsi?—and his presence was easily ignored by the pair. Trowa frowned, fork between his teeth. He didn’t need language, though, to know when developments, caches, and targets were being discussed.

Trowa eyed the alien script. Schematics to his ten-year-old mind had looked less daunting. But could it really be as complicated as it looked?

“I wouldn’t linger,” Fahd said, hand splaying across the page. “Nizar tells me the roads are quite bad this morning.”

Fahd closed the folder, set it aside, and took up his coffee again with too-smooth movements. Muttering, Nizar poured himself a mug, which he upturned so quickly Trowa thought he would choke. Fahd cleared his throat. The second cup was significantly slower.

They assumed. They assumed but couldn’t be sure that Trowa didn’t understand everything they said. That, Trowa supposed, was better than nothing. And incredibly useful. He turned to his pancakes.

The final piece was barely in his mouth when darkness descended over his vision. Fork clattering, Trowa pushed back from the table with his legs, hands lunging upwards in practiced claws. They connected with silk and cotton before twisting and finding flesh.

“Well next time you might wait until he’s finished,” Fahd chuckled.

Fahd was no better, catching Trowa’s bicep as he moved to yank the cloth off and hoisting him out of the chair. He held him tightly about the wrist and waist. Warm breath ghosted across his neck. For a moment, Trowa felt the rough bite of frozen asphalt. His throat constricted under invisible pressure.

But the words were not what he was expecting.

“Be good. I’m looking forward to tonight.”

Trowa realized, as Nizar led him away, tugging only once or twice as he resisted unconsciously, that he might very well have preferred being choked into oblivion again.

*-----*-----*

“There you are. I was beginning to worry.”

Fahd didn’t look particularly worried, leaning back in the dinette chair with coat and tie tossed once again over the back of another. He twirled the stem of his wine glass with the slow precision of the extremely irritated.

“Blame your mutt,” Nizar spat before stomping to the coat. Trowa wished he hadn’t insisted on the blindfold being removed in the elevator again. He would have liked to strangle the man with it.

Fahd, eyebrow arched, looked from one to the other. The intense gaze lingered on Trowa long enough to raise the hair on his neck. Grinding his teeth, and hoping it was a careless, unconcerned gesture, Trowa shrugged.

“Work to do.”

Nizar snorted. Trowa wished he was closer to the table; the knives looked just balanced enough for the short distance. Fahd blinked before shaking his head.

“Once again, your dedication shames me—”

Trowa wouldn’t call it “dedication” but rather a total unwillingness to deny the distraction of meaningless phone calls. It was very difficult to make a mind focused on exploitative sex, and the irritatingly mixed feelings that came with it, do actual, constructive work. So he only finished a few sheets while Quatre griped about the mundane paperwork he had been called in on a Saturday for. He had finished quite a few more when Duo called closer to lunch, but only because it was much easier to tune out the bantering man without being caught.

Heero’s phone call after lunch had been almost entirely silent, with the exception of a few choice pleasantries and the reminder that Heero did have the car and the weather had let up enough for a safe drive into the city. He suspected Heero was either also doing work, or was searching the very rhythm of his breathing for answers. Trowa had watched his phone, worrying at his cheek with his teeth long after Heero grumbled about Duo and snow shovels and excused himself.

Needless to say, Trowa got very little work done, and had stayed well past the appointed seven o’clock meeting time to finish his usual load.

“—But I really must insist that this doesn’t become a habit. Dedication is a noble thing, but not at the expense of your health.” Fahd’s lips curled as he spoke. Trowa locked his knees to keep from rearing. It wasn’t his health he was concerned about. “Now come and eat.”

Trowa, hoping to prolong the repeat of last night for as long as humanly possible, moved and sat stiffly beside him. Once again, anything and everything even remotely meat-related was as far away as humanly possible.

He wrinkled his nose at the sweet, juicy perfume of fruit and the hearty, grainy one of bread. Trowa’s stomach rumbled. Grinding his teeth, he thought about protocol, gun maintenance, front-line first aid, slaughter houses—anything to keep himself from wanting what Fahd nudged in front of him.

But he hadn’t actually made it out of the office at lunch; Duo had been too engrossed in his own tales from the supermarket to let Trowa go. Sighing softly, he reached for a nearby plate of vegetables, ignoring the curious bowl of paste beside it, and served himself. Fahd nudged a bowl of fruit towards him. Trowa reached over it and took a piece of bread.

They ate in not a companionable silence—and Trowa almost kicked himself for even thinking of the word—but one less awkward than he expected. Or preferred. He was starting his third piece of bread, and his first serving of fruit after having ignored two different vegetable dishes pushed on him, when Fahd spoke.

“I suppose it’s different than you expected--” he said, not looking up from the meat he was cutting. Trowa couldn’t stop himself from glancing at him with an only slightly incredulous expression. Of course it was. Extortionists weren’t suppose to play nice with their victims, offering dinner, comfort, and everything else that bothered Trowa.   “—being a Preventor.”

He stared, brow furrowed in confusion. Where did that come from?

His face was carefully smooth when Fahd turned and smiled. His irritation suddenly spiked. “Your patience is astounding. I would never stand for such a blatant disregard of my abilities, were I as talented as you—”

Trowa heard a low ringing. It built until it swallowed Fahd’s voice—most of it.

“Imagine: a Gundam pilot so reduced. You wiped out entire battalions in a handful of minutes. You crept into the most intimate places of the enemy. You ensured victory, and the best gift these thankful people offer you is quiet days with a desk, a pen, and never-ending mountains of paperwork.”

Fahd paused and sipped his wine. He shrugged as if the taste suddenly gave him an idea. “Though you may prefer it. The life of a Gundam pilot is undoubtedly exhausting, especially for one so young. You might enjoy calm certainty of a life of mundane papwork—”

He wasn’t sure when he picked it up, or when he decided that not only did the fork look better embedded in Fahd’s hand but that it simply belong there. All Trowa knew was that suddenly there was blood and cursing, and a delayed scream of shock and rage as he was yanked out of his chair by the hair.

A thick, jacket-covered arm tried to wind about his throat. Trowa twisted, ignoring the sharp burn of ripped out hair, and drove his elbow into the base of Nizar’s ribcage. It felt like concrete, but Nizar still bent forward with a grunt. Fahd caught Trowa’s fist in a bloody grip before it could explode forward. Trowa swung his leg back. Fahd danced out of it, into the arc of the fist he had to drop. Ducking down, he caught Trowa around the waist, and lifted. Trowa squeaked as he was held bent over the broad shoulder.

When Fahd started walking, Trowa twisted, bending as if he could coil around the man’s throat. His heel almost made to the eyes. Fahd caught his ankle in his spare hand, threw it down again, and wrapped his arm about Trowa’s kicking knees.

“Put me down,” he snarled. He would not beat his fists against his back like some woman, but Trowa was not beneath digging his fingers into joints, pressure points, and pulses.

The world started spinning. Trowa caught flashes of familiar walls and wooden bed posts before he landed with a grunt on the mattress. He dug into the slick coverings. He needed distance if he was going to keep Fahd from pinning him and gouge out the bastard’s eyes.

Fahd turned on his heel and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him.

Trowa waited glaring at the door. When Fahd didn`t reappear again after a minute of heart-thudding silence, he sat up. The angry tension melted from his face, replaced with only slightly more usual lines of open concentration and suspicion. That too eventually slid away as Trowa heard nothing but voices, garbled by distance, the gentle tick of the clock as a minute, and then another, passed, and his own breathing. Trowa was itching to fidget by the time the door finally opened again.

Smoldering black eyes sucked the air out of the room. Trowa choked. Fahd closed the door with a dish towel-bandaged hand. Trowa fisted the bedding, his grip tightening with each step Fahd took towards the bed.

“You owe me an explanation,” he said softly. Trowa`s jaw tightened.

“I owe you a matching knife.”

Fahd limbs were much longer than his, Trowa realized, head snapping to the side with force of the back handing. He was barely at the edge of the bed and he had reached him. He bent forward, he thought. Heavy hands landed hard on his shoulders. Hips followed, sliding over his shins as he sprawled backwards. Trowa twisted and yanked his knees up. Fahd caught them. He pushed them back and opened. Trowa hissed and bucked, knowing that straining seams were already loosening.

There has to be thread somewhere in this damn place.

Fahd settled between them, using his weight to hold the thrashing legs awkwardly down and freeing his hands to deal with Trowa`s fists. Trowa cursed the man`s genetics. No one should be able to grab an adult`s two wrists with one hand! Fahd crushed them against his chest, leaning closer to reach for something above Trowa`s head. His throat was close enough. Trowa lunged with a snarl.

Fahd growled, jumping back. He dragged Trowa up with him. Trowa slumped forward, aiming for the throat with his teeth and pulling on the grip around his wrists. If he let go just a little, then—

The world suddenly darkened and cooled. A hand forced cloth and buttons into his gasping mouth. Trowa sputtered around the taste of polyester and detergent. Fahd yanked his shirt further over his head. He twisted and coiled it, pulling hair and tangling Trowa`s arms. The buttoned collar caught on his Adam’s apple. Trowa coughed.

Trowa tumbled back onto the mattress, struggling against the improvised restraint. Fahd fished his hands out the cloth, and snapped heavy, cold metal around them instead. Trowa pulled, spitting to get the cloth out of his mouth. What kind of man keeps manacles underhis pillows?

He flipped Trowa onto his stomach and stretched out over his back. “Maybe you`d like to give me that explanation now?” Fahd hissed, grinding his hips against his rear.

Not fucking likely!

As if he somehow knew Trowa almost had the shirt out of his mouth, Fahd shoved his face into the nearest pillow. Trowa cursed, Fahd first and then his own inability to break the hold and get soon-to-be much-needed oxygen. He was too focused on that hand to notice its mate until it had already yanked Trowa`s hips up and his pants down.

He froze. Back curved, his chest pressed into the mattress, Trowa presented a completely unhindered view. Fahd was close. Too close. He could feel the smooth touch of an expensive suit against his knees and thighs. He could feel the man`s heat with the sensitive skin of his genitals. Muscles flexed and shivered.

Trowa had been taken from behind before. Most of the mercenaries—when they weren`t drunk enough to not know up from down and a dick from a cunt—had preferred it, hands glued to his breasts so a few choice pieces of anatomy couldn`t ruin their fantasies. They almost always held him up. A few of the taller ones managed with him on his knees. None of them ever pushed him down like that.

They wouldn’t. They weren`t gay and didn`t want to face the possibility that half of Trowa`s body teased them with, the same possibility Fahd stared at unabashed. His large hand waited on his upper thigh. Trowa knew the thumb was only inches from both his moistening slit and his balls. It was rubbing slow circles.

He`d never felt more exposed.

Embarrassment holding him still far better, the hand on his head slid away. A finger glided down the back of his neck, curving around the prominent ridges in his spine. The hand spread, ran down his back and over the first few ridges of his ribs, to the edge of the corset. Fahd walked his fingers to the first of the clasps. It fell open at his touch.

Too soon, the corset landed on the mattress with a soft thud. Trowa`s breasts hung free and swayed. A warm hand lay on the middle of his back. Even though he knew Fahd could feel it, Trowa trembled and panted. He whimpered, soft and low in his throat, as the hand slid around to his chest. The circling thumb dug into his inner thigh.

Trowa jolted forward as Fahd pressed his lips to the base of his spine. He moved slowly, peppering his skin along the side of a long scar. Trowa shifted his legs and arched away from the light touch. Fahd followed, pushing hard against Trowa`s abdomen until he straightened again.

Fahd took his time, exploring the limited, unmarked skin of his back with his lips and ignoring every shift, pull, and noise Trowa made. Trowa couldn`t understand the reason behind the intense, physical scrutiny. And he understood warmth pooling in his stomach even less.

The kisses end at the nape of his neck. Fahd was pressed against his back and a bulge snug against his rear. Trowa shuddered as Fahd rocked forward, despite the stain that would appear on his dress pants.

“Tell me,” he murmured. The words were hot and wet against his ear. Trowa burrowed into the pillow.

Fahd shifted back. The wet heat left his ear, only to attach itself at the base of his spine. The tongue slid up the first long scar slowly.

He moved slower this time. There was no piece of dead skin that Fahd didn’t touch. He started with a small circular lick at the base of the scar, followed by a slow, upward pull. The tip slid along the scar’s line with a surgeon’s exactness. It retracted at the end, letting Fahd’s lips end the attention with a kiss before darting back out to circle the beginning of the next one.

Halfway up his back, Fahd wrapped his arms around Trowa’s waist and stroked his stomach.

Trowa heaved, biting into shirt and pillow and grabbing the chains he found attached to the manacles tight enough to mark his palms. Memories rose from every inch of attention-lavished scar tissue. Some were blessedly incomplete. The mass of faded scars that spread across the center of his back only brought a vague smell of smoke, and the possible creak of fire-weakened wood. Others were merely unpleasant, even ordinary: suture scars from bullet and knife wounds, where a drill that had slipped off the scaffolding caught him in the back. And then there were razor scars: narrow lines where the flesh had parted with an almost elegant agony. And the wider, gaping ones of belts, jagged where the buckle had ripped a piece from his bones.

It was the captain who figured out how well he responded to a belt. Trowa avoided wearing them as much as possible.

The last scar ran from his spine to his left shoulder. It wasn’t the nastiest of the belt scars; they hadn’t turned the buckle on him. But one of the mercenaries had poured an entire bottle of vodka on it.   The flesh burned where Fahd touched it. Trowa whimpered into the pillow.

“Tell me,” he said, stroking his stomach.

If it was about the scars, there was nothing in the world that would make Trowa open his mouth while this close to hysterics. Again.   And if it was the knife—

Then he should have known better. If the man was stupid enough to think Trowa wouldn’t react to insults, then he didn’t deserve an explanation. But Trowa knew now, or rather suspected, Fahd had been trying to get such a reaction. How better than to voice the bitterness Trowa kept close, gnawing increasingly painful holes in himself, because he was too scared or too weak to voice them?

He nipped at the scar, and Trowa forgot not only what he was holding back but what Fahd even asked.

“Stop.” The shirt and pillow muffled some of the weakness in the plea.

“Tell me and I will.”

The teeth grazed again and he simply couldn’t stop himself. “It hurts.”

Fahd stayed pressed against his back but removed his lightly-pressed teeth from his skin. The hand on his thigh slid around his hip and up his side until it could carefully unearth Trowa’s head from the cloth he hid himself with.

The world was bright and thin. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen but behind the familiar and hateful bronze walls Trowa saw equally familiar and hateful scaffolds and pathetic mobile suits. Tent poles stood in the faded centers of the bed posts. There was grass and silk beneath his knee, wine and oil in his nose. He heard Fahd’s and his breathing and the susurrus of dinning chatter. Ticking and clinking bottles. His cheeks itched. Trowa tasted salt.

There was no mistaking who touched him. Fahd stroked his limp erection with a gentle palm and the world snapped into focus. Trowa flexed his fingers and hissed.

“Stop.”

“Would you prefer the nipping then?”

An angry and pitiful groan rumbled from his throat. Trowa grunted as Fahd released his hair and he dropped back to the pillow. He pushed shaking arms beneath his chin and pushed. Fahd grabbed his rear and squeezed, thumb nudging the tight entrance. Trowa fell forward with a gasp.

“Just stay,” Fahd said twisting the hardening flesh in his hand. Trowa squirmed, and continued to through the twisting and the nudging until Fahd finally managed to wriggle a long, dry finger inside

His ass had not been the most attractive choice for the mercenaries. But even if it had, Trowa doubted the slow push and withdrawal would hurt any less. He grit his teeth until he felt the back of Fahd`s hand flushed against his ass. The breath Trowa had held rush out in a gasp as the withdrawing finger circled, barely opening the tight ring of muscle an eighth of an inch.

“I didn`t think you could get any tighter,” Fahd said when the tip finished a last sweep of the clenching hole. Trowa, panting through his nose—skin was not supposed to pull like that—shivered as Fahd stroked. He keened as the thumb swept over the moist head and two fingers pushed back in.

Fahd did it every time something should have hurt. When he curled his fingers, or twisted them so that the fatter second knuckles caught and pulled his insides, or nudged them so far apart Trowa was sure he was looking straight inside, he did something to his cock. Stroked or twisted it with an irritatingly perfect amount of pressure. Or ran a thumb around the head, pressed it hard against the slit. So Trowa was, unfortunately, already on the verge of moaning, and rocking very slightly, when Fahd brushed something inside that made him see bursts of white.

“Fuck!”

Fahd chuckled. “Well that`s good to know.”

Trowa breathed curses into the pillow as Fahd rubbed, hips pushing back against the flexing and curling fingers. They slid a bit deeper into him easily. The muscles in his back and sides eased. Trowa spread his legs with only slight coaxing. And when Fahd eventually, almost reluctantly, withdrew slowly, fingers pressed tight together, Trowa let out a low sound he only distantly realized was almost a whine.

Fahd chuckled and stroked his rear, which would have irritated him if he hadn`t also decided just then to palm arousal-dampened balls. Trowa was so focused on the fingers rolling and pulling them slowly, hard, gentler, harder again and faster, he didn`t register the missing hand until thick, hot flesh rubbed against the cleft of his ass. And then it was too late.

Fahd pushed.

Trowa filled his mouth with pillow. Too big, much too big! Something that big was not supposed to go up there! Fahd gripped his hips. Trowa almost didn`t want to struggle. Trying to force it out, or ripping it out, had to hurt more.

“Longer next time. Fuck, you`re tight,” Fahd growled.

“Take it out!” he snapped into the pillow.

“Just relax, like you did with the fingers.”

“Out!”

There were tears in his scream as Fahd eased his hips forward and forced in another inch. “Relax.”

It would have been better if Trowa could just stay still. Fahd would at least have had a hand free to stroke him then. But he couldn`t. Fahd held his shaking hips in both hands as he pushed, slowly but constantly. Trowa would have, almost wanted to, beg for the distracting touch. A twist, a pull, something!   But neither of them could trust Trowa not to arch forward, twist sideways, or do some other entirely natural reaction that led to absolute agony.

Finally, the pressure stopped. There was warm flesh against the back of his thighs and rear. Hands stroked his sides and around to his heaving stomach. Trowa flinched and groaned. He could feel it. The head. He could. It was there, poking at his intestines. It had to be. When Fahd pushed again it would rip through it. Trowa waited, trembling.

But he didn`t. Fahd knelt behind him and stroked his trembling skin: slow at first, the pads running lightly up to his ribs. Then they turned and circled down his sides with a gentle pressure. Back up again, pads, then down with his whole hand.

Eventually, Trowa`s breathing evened. The cold sweat that had beaded along his spine dried. His body stilled. Trowa realized, with the same sense of relief and dread that followed Fahd`s now departing hands, the pain and horrible sense of fullness had lessened. And even when the large penis retreated and returned, and Trowa felt his walls stretch and retract even that inch or two, absolute fullness didn`t return.

It still wasn`t pleasant.

Fahd thrust slow and shallow, removing only an inch, then two, three, of flesh before pushing back in. His tight grip on Trowa`s hips kept him from rocking, into or away.   Trowa fisted the chains, counting each shallow thrust with a squeeze and each gained inch with a groan. He groaned very little.

His knees were hurting. Trowa shifted, just a little. His hips moved in Fahd`s hands, and the head scrapped the edge of that spot going out. Heat sparked beneath his stomach.

“Fuck...”

Fahd`s grip tightened. Without stopping his thrusts, he moved Trowa`s hips. Up and down. Around. Trowa hissed as the blunt head bounced off aching walls until thrusting into the center of the spot.   Trowa gasped, high and breathy, and pushed back as far as the grip allowed. Fahd stopped. The head pressed lightly against it. Fahd rolled his hips. The head nudged, scrapped, and retreated. Slowly. The heat flared, and faded, an oxygen-deprived flame instead of the bright explosion that came with a good, solid thrust. And Fahd did rolled again and again, holding Trowa’s twisting hips in a bruising grip.

Trowa finally whined.

Fahd pulled out until the head awkwardly stretched the skin just past his entrance. He snapped his hips forward. Trowa supposed it should have hurt: inches of thick flesh plunging their way back into his bowels with enough force to shove his body a few inches forward. There was probably blood.   But the head slammed into the spot. White pleasure exploded in front of his eyes. Before Trowa had enough breath in his lungs to moan Fahd had pulled out and slammed back in. On the third thrust, he choked out a scream.

Only a vice grip on the chains, which rattled and cut into his palms with the pounding, kept Trowa’s mind even remotely attached to his body. Distantly, he heard the creak of the mattress and the wet slapping of Fahd’s precum-soaked cock driving into him. He felt the moans: his own rising up his chest, pressed into the bed, Fahd’s vibrating down into his back.

He should have been angry. Never mind the careless—Trowa jolted as a hand snaked around his erection and stroked—Fahd showed for his body. How dare the man manipulate him so easily.   Trowa should have been embarrassed. How could he be so malleable? There was nothing warm or pleasant that a numb mind and the right memories couldn’t smother entirely.   But here he was, moaning and rocking and his head detaching from his body in an entirely inappropriate-for-the-situation white haze, because he was too weak to remember he was doing this for all the wrong reasons.

But Trowa simply didn’t care. Not right now. Not with a pleasure he hadn’t known was possible lancing through his body and driving his head from his shoulders.

Besides, it wasn’t like there would ever be a “right” reason. A normal reason. An appropriate time. He wasn’t meant for that.

Pleasure wasn’t meant for you at all, the last piece of his mind, clinging desperately to his body, hissed. Trowa’s hands, wet with the blood from scratches, slipped on the chains.

Fahd pulled him up. Thrusting impossibly harder, he buried his teeth into the end of the scar on Trowa’s shoulder. With a cry, the last of Trowa’s mind floated into the pleasant white haze.

He would be angry tomorrow.

*-----*-----*

Soundproofing was a small miracle, Nizar realized as he stacked the last of his late-dinner dishes in the drying rack. The mutt would have disturbed the neighbors to the point of a phone call to a homicide unit otherwise. But as Nizar could barely hear his screaming a few rooms away, he doubted anyone outside the penthouse heard anything at all.

It had been quiet for a while, though. Almost an hour he realized after looking at the clock. Could the mutt have actually tired the walking libido? He was drying his hands when he caught faint footfalls behind him. Well, that was too much to hope for.

Fahd, dressed only in loose blue jeans and carrying a towel, ran his injured hand through his hair. He flinched. Nizar’s mouth twitched.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Fahd muttered. Nizar snorted and gestured impatiently towards the table. Fahd sat down, tossing the towel in front of him. It was stained with blood, and he didn’t want to know what else.

Nizar snatched it up. “People need to eat off this.”

“Unless you plan on licking your food right off the glass, I think you’ll be fine.”

Towel in the trash and the first aid kit from beneath the sink, Nizar sat across from his irritating, immature charge and took his wounded hand none too gently. The dishtowel was soaked with blood. Nizar got a bowl before tossing it aside. Gripping Fahd’s hand, he opened a bottle of peroxide with his teeth and poured it over the wounds.

Aside from a minor flinch, Fahd didn’t even notice. He had apparently found something fascinating about the far wall. Fascinating, and irritating. Nizar frowned. It wasn’t like him at all to be moody after sex.   He pinched the long, narrow rips a little harder as he stitched the skin.

Fahd grunted and turned. He watched the needle pierce and pull for a moment. “The press will have a field day.”

“And whose fault is that?” he asked, pulling the thread hard. He started the last line. “I suppose you have a story?”

“I think I’ll tell them I was helping a poor stray,” he said with a smirked. Nizar ground his teeth.

“This doesn’t look like a dog bite.”

                “No one will see the stitches under the bandages,” he said reasonably. “And I never said ‘dog’.”

Nizar took the gauze out of the first aid kit and tossed it at him. Fahd frowned. Nizar packed the rest of the kit and snatched up it, the bowl, and the towel.   He hoped the boy ripped out all the stitches trying to wrap it right.

“…Your resources are better than mine.” Fahd said after a few minutes. Nizar continued cleaning up, starting to wash the bowl and letting him struggle for a bit longer.

“I suppose it depends on what you want,” he said finally. “If you’ve broken it already,” he said gesturing towards the trashcan with his head, “I doubt I can find you a new one.”

“No need to stretch them quite so thin. I only need information.”

He glanced at him over his shoulder.

“Find out about his life.”

He turned. Water running wastefully in the sink and dripping onto the floor, Nizar stared.

“You know about his life.”

“He wasn’t born fifteen. The file only goes back to Meteor. Maybe a little before it.”

He hadn’t actually finished the thick file yet. It only covers three to four years? What the hell did these former pilots do? How the hell had they survived?

Fahd tied the bandage off with teeth. “Find out about his life before Meteor. Anything. I don’t care if all you get me is a list of the library books he owes. I want to know everything there is about him.”

“Why?”

Fahd looked up at him and smiled. It was a slow gesture, a small upturn of lips that widened before they parted to reveal a row of straight, white teeth.   Black eyes dulled with thought as Fahd concerned something in the future Nizar could only guess at. He blinked and they gleamed with the bright light of obsession.

It was the same look Fahd had worn when he had explained how nerve toxin with a few choice components that would cause anaphylactic shock in his allergy-prone father would hasten the coming of the resistance’s victory. Death would have been preferred but Fahd would settle for brain dead if it got him out of the way.

And made him suffer.

Information. On his life, his childhood. Nizar almost felt sorry for the mutt.

He bowed his head. “Of course, my lord.”

*-----*-----*

Maybe it was because Trowa just looked that miserable and furious—which happens after sitting on an extremely sore ass and mentally berating oneself for nine agonizing hours—but on Sunday night, after a dinner where there wasn’t a fork or knife in sight (and spoons were just too inconvenient), Fahd let him sleep.

AN: I'm a little worried about the characterization of Trowa after the long hiatus...I think I might have to watch the series again to get a feel for the stoicism that I want to break so badly.

And it will break. I have plenty of plans for the silencer.

Except for the ending...I haven't quite figured out where he will end up. Both in terms of relationships and mental health. I know where he will be...but not where he will be. More thinking...I wish I had someone to discuss it with but alas, fanfiction is still not quite the acceptable medium of a creative writing major. Like fantasy. (And as I particularly enjoy both, I scoff at that declaration. My professors would be furious.) It will reveal itself in time.

Meanwhile, you can expect more physical and emotion turmoil, courtesy of Fahd, Trowa's own paranoia, reluctance, and resistance, and the other boys. It probably won't be in the next chapter but the long-awaited confrontation with the rest of the pilots is coming. This should prove interesting. In the meantime, enjoy your days and nights.

~*~ Lady Yein Khan ~*~
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The Chains We Wear